Eyes on the Street: Curb-Jumping Cab Driver Hits Pedestrians on UWS

Streetsblog reader Liz Patek sent in these photos of the aftermath of a Tuesday afternoon crash at 68th Street and Broadway, in front of the Loews Lincoln Square movie theater. Liz writes:

Police were still on the scene. From talking to people, it appears that the cab backed up at a high speed around the corner from 68th to Broadway in order to get a parking spot. One of the people I spoke to was hit by the cab. She was OK. Two other pedestrians were injured and taken away in ambulances before I arrived. According to another witness, one of the other pedestrians who was hit got pulled under the cab and dragged for several feet. The driver also took out the street light.

NYPD had no information on the crash, and we could find no media reports. All of which is a pretty good indicator of how common these non-fatal crashes with injuries are. For every fatality that is written up somewhere there are dozens of “minor” crashes like this one. If you saw what happened here or have any info, let us know in the comments.

This crash occurred in the 20th Precinct. The commanding officer there is Deputy Inspector Brian A. McGinn. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to McGinn or other precinct higher-ups, drop in on the next community council meeting. The 20th Precinct council “usually” meets on the fourth Monday of each month, except in July and August, at the 20th Precinct station house, 120 W. 82nd Street, at 7:00 p.m. Call ahead (212-580-6428) to confirm meeting dates and times.

And the city wants to put thousands MORE of these scofflaw motorists on city streets? How can they do it before they know if it will be safe?

Eric McClure

Damned bike lanes!

dporpentine

For every fatality that is written up somewhere there are dozens of “minor” crashes like this one.

A cab ran over a neighbor of mine a year ago–just plain ran over her while she was in a crosswalk, the light in her favor.
No story about it anywhere. But she’ll have pain every day for the rest of her life.

ddartley

Adding to all the insult and injury, it looks like he took out two bike racks too.

I don’t know if any summonses were or were not issued here, but dear NYPD: when a car jumps a curb, SOMEONE f*cking IS AT FAULT. Curb-jumping cars seem to injure people at least once a month in NYC. There is so much the police could do, but they don’t.

Thanks for the pics, Liz.

vhamer

Gawd, he must have been backing up REALLY FAST to have taken out the light like that. I hope the pedestrians heal successfully.

http://twitter.com/eveostay Steve O.

Pedestrians on the sidewalk deserve this. They are always doing crazy things.

poncho

oops, just another “accident”

so in a situation like this, who pays for the damage?

poncho

we need bollards along the edge of the sidewalk to protect innocent pedestrians from scofflaw motorists

Driver

ddartley, you are right, and the police can impose harsher penalties, but do you really thing that will actually prevent incidents like these? Nobody expects to end up out of control and jumping the sidewalk. The real problem is it is too easy to get a license and as a result there are many drivers on the road without the proper skills to responsibly drive a car.

I don’t just want the police to just impose harsher penalties. I said there is a lot they could do. Such as have an increased visible presence all over the city, with visible messages like “NYPD is watching your speed NOW.” That’s just one of many, many things they could do to help prevent outrageous, yet totally f-ing tolarated, stuff like this.

World Traveler

I wonder if this cab-jumping the curb thing is part of some sort of NYC.gov tourism initiative or something. Come visit NYC for the holidays, where you can be run over by a taxi and the police, press and political establishment will do absolutely nothing at all to prevent that from happening.

http://twitter.com/danberkman Dan Berkman

The city now has cabs with GPS tracking devices. They should add a camera facing the driver and another facing the road. The cameras would record all the time but only store the footage when the driver honks the horn, brakes suddenly,accelerates suddenly or exceeds the speed limit.

Red light and speed cameras throughout the city would be ideal but this might get some of the worst cab drivers off the street.

Mayhawk55

It was my sister inlaw who was run over by the taxi. I hope the driver dosen’ t get away with it. How could something like this happen? No one is safe walking in the city anymore. Jj